Page 685 - PERSIAN 5 1905_1911

83 ADMINISTRATION REPORT OF THE PERSIAN GULF

The quarantine arrangements under
Public Health, Hospital, Quarantine.
the supervision of the Agency Surgeon
worked smoothly during the year.
On the whole, Madiat public health has been good and, with the excep­
tion of an outbreak of plague in the month of April, fortunately not very
severe, there are no epidemic diseases to report as having occurred in either
Maskat or Muttra. The plague epidemic died down early in May and the
port was given a clean bill of health on the 14th June.
Very different accounts, however, came from the districts of Oman.
Cholera was reported no less than five times during the year: in the end of
January a severe epidemic carried off about 250 of the Beni Bu Hassan and
150 of the Beni Bu Ali tribes in Sur and Ja’alan. Among the victims of
this epidemic were Shaikh Sultan, grandson of Amir Abdulla bin Salim of
Ja’alan, and Shaikhs Rashid bin Hamad and Ali bin Jumaiah of the Beni
Bu Ali. The outbreak was stated later to have spread to Sharquiyah and
was reported very virulent at Rostak and Bidiyah.
In July, cholera was again reported from Ja’alan among the Beni
Hassan villages, and another slight outbreak of the disease was reported
from Sur at the erid of August.
Small-pox was reported, in the beginning of February, from Falaj, and
again in May from the Batina Coast where Shaikh Said bin Salim, His
Highness the Sultan’s Wali of Suwaiq, with his son fell a victim to the
disease. His Highness was greatly attached to this official and felt his loss
deeply.
There was a slight recrudescence of plague in Sib and Kuryat in May
when the disease had begun to die out in Maskat itself.
Abdul Karim, a low class Poona Muhammadan, continued to manage
His Highness’s Customs Department for
Customs and Landing Arrangements.
him. The issue of goods to consignees
without production of delevery orders or bills of lading still continues and
leads to many difficulties and some oppression.
In the end of August, His Highness the Sultan at last got tired of the
slack business methods of his landing contractor Abdul Kadir, and a parti­
cularly glaring theft by the latter’s boatmen led to his downfall. For some
time, the landing arrangements were conducted by the Customs Superinten­
dent Abdul Karim, and landing charges were immediately enhanced by 50
per cent. There is no coubt, however, that, in the past, they were too low to
admit of profitable working without dishonesty. In the end of October His
Highness permitted the landing arrangements to be undertaken by a com­
pany of four men of whom the leader is Ali Khan, the noted Baluch arms
dealer. The other three are Zubair, a clerk of His Highness; Hamdan, an
Arab subject and employ^ at the British Post Office; and Muhammad Kathuri.
who was the late partner of the ex-landing contractor. Abdul Kadir, and
enjoys an evil reputation. These appointments are a clear departure from
time-honoured custom in Maskat whereby importers, of whom 75 per cent,
are British Indian subjects, appoint their own agent subject to His High­
ness’s approval. But British subjects, consignees, have only themselves to
thank for the loss of this privilege, as they are hopelessly divided among them­
selves and have only one object in view—the cutting down of landing rates.
As soon as the natural result follows, badly paid employ6s and barefaced
theft, they are full of complaint but cannot unite to put an end to the unsatis­
factory state of affairs. At present there is, so far as the Political Agent is
aware, no landing contract of any kind, but, under the present arrangements,
there has been a marked diminution of complaints and indeed it is difficult
to imagine any arrangement that could be worse than that of Abdul Kadir.
During the year under report 48 applications were received from slaves
for freedom, of whom 31 were from
Slave Trade. |
Mekran and 17 from Zanzibar. Of the
48 applicants, 24 were freed and manumissions granted. Six more slaves,
whose cases were pending during 1910, were also freed during the year.